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No it wasn't. Get your facts straight.
"Absolver is an action RPG with a handful of TCG elements which puts players into the shoes and behind the mask of a Prospect, a young hero who has taken a vow and become one of the Absolvers, an elite group of warriors fighting to maintain stability in the world. Players wander this fantastic and forsaken land, learning how to fight and how to use the myriad of melee weapons and powers that their work requires, as well as new cards for your combat deck, all in real time battles. Assemble an elite team of warriors to fight by your side as you explore the darkest dungeons and forgotten mines of the world of Adal, or when you step foot into the arena to test yourself against other players. Everything you do, every encounter, will have a lasting impact on the narrative and the world around you. Do you have the courage and skill to put on the mask of a Prospect?"
Source: http://www.mmogames.com/game/absolver/
Misleading, to say the least.
Right.
Maybe try actually looking up what the actual devs actually say about the game?
Game tagline: "Online melee action"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KXiPBHmm6U
"Absolver is an online action game"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak6tZgvt_VQ
"The core gameplay is an accessible but very deep melee combat system"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Ac6YlDzpw
"Very accessible combat system, but deep enough to support competitive PvP"
"...in which players can meet one another and build meaningful relationships"
So a fighting game with a game world that acts as a social hub. Which it... pretty much is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmqfIbR7Q4Y
In-depth information about how the combat mechanics work, with the core gameplay established as being the combat multiple times throughout.
Also going back more directly onto the main topic:
https://twitter.com/Absolver/status/995010670805438465
While I agree that this want the Devs initial idea, when most of the reviewers/players/streamers believe it to be focused on open world, that means the Dev team screwed up. Like I mentioned a little bit ago, there’s not enough PvE to be considered a full game but there IS enough to get players hooked right before it ends. It reflects poor planning on their part of they wanted it to be mainly PvP focused. Considering they put what seems to be 5x the amount of work into world building and player interaction your argument seems more and more hollow...
So far, the website and steamstore both quite clearly say that the game was meant to hold PvE and PvP with equal value, with the main focus being both action and narrative.
"Moments of tension, leaps of faith, and fragile truces will punctuate your journey through the game."
"Prospects and Absolvers will seamlessly encounter others in the world, generating unique stories that emerge through player interaction and choices. These moments are filled with tension as intentions to battle or befriend are never clear: trust is always a leap of faith. Encounters will have lasting consequences and transform into meaningful relationships as you make friends or enemies and find mentors or disciples. "
"Explore a rich and dynamic world including dedicated PvP battle arenas where champions will receive spoils of victory and progress in the ranks of the Absolvers, and PvE areas in which players cooperatively battle to retrieve rare loot and equipment from the ruins of Adal."
These things aren't possible with the game being "just a PvP fighting game" with a PvE component added as a tutorial or an extra, especialy when the openworld environment is probably the best environment to facilitate that experience and support features such as learning moves from opponents by encountering them in the field.
No matter, PvE content coming, i'm happy and will be boarding the hypetrain.
1. PvP (the core gameplay experience).
2. Open world environment being useful as a social hub to meet other players and make friends.
Pretty sure that means the core gameplay is about PvP and the PvE content is just there as an excuse to meet people. Like the DB Xenoverse games and DBFZ having social hubs, except that you can punch people even in there.
"One character" with over a dozen hairstyles, 2 genders, 4 different fighting styles with a total of 16 different combat stances, innumerable outfits that affect stats, variable stats not defined by appearance, and a custom-built moveset ranging from 8 to over 50 attacks, with between 2 and 8 defensive moves, and with a minimum of 20 different ways to manipulate the fight in ways that aren't directly offense- or defense-oriented (potentially more depending on style and other factors).
Also, with significantly less than 200 moves, 95% means that a maximum of 8 moves would be viable in competitive play. Considering players typically build 3 separate decks (unarmed, gloves, sword) with at least some differences between each and no deck being capable of having less than 8 moves in it... your numbers seem slightly off. Not to mention the fact that there are a wide variety of competitively-viable combat decks which use different attacks successfully against opponents of similar skill. If you've actually played against more than one decent player, and have a working pair of eyes, you can tell the players have two different decks, typically with 12 to 16 moves in them.
And by "5" people you of course mean "several hundred", right? Because that's a more accurate count of the daily activity the game was seeing prior to the current sale.
Don't worry man, I'm sure you'll trick a few people into buying this.
I don't think it's a question about convincing people, or "tricking" as you say, but it's about sharing one's experience :
- Forsaken's parry is only as good as your opponent is predictable. I've fought a lot of "fresh" Forsaken, and it was 'mistimed parry' open bar for me, and I'm a rather casual Windfall player.
- Side Kick is a double-edge sword. The move is popular and because of this, rather easy to spot. You will often meet a swift low-sweep in your legs for trying to land SK more than once or twice.
- Hyper-Armor moves are no good if you use can't use them properly. Too slow, too predictable. And with the recent buff to stopping attacks, even Khalt players don't use them that much anymore.
- Double hitting moves are also quite popular, specially the one where your character does a whirlwind thingy with his arms and hits low (Forgot the name), but they're over-estimated. People like them because they're fast but most of the time any other move could give better results (in terms of block-stun-frames/hit-stun frames)
- Fast moves are only here to provide openings, counter slower attacks and seize the opportunity to "reverse the pressure". Yes, you must have at the very least one. Building a deck only arround those isn't going to work for long.
That might have been true at some point in Absolver's life, but it is not anymore.
However, the way you are presenting things is interesting (you forgot to mention that using Parry -or other style special- is obviously not the only way to take the initiative back.)
Actually, Absolver's Duels are a bit like Tennis. I could elaborate more but that should do : Sometime a player "leads" the game and the other can't do much but running, untill he manages to find an opening to take the lead back.
See where I'm going? Is Tennis considered a "one dimension" sport ?
The only direct mention of PvP in those quotes is that it "SUPPORTS competetive PvP", rather than it being the sole focus of the game. Ever single thing
Having looked through the videos aswell... Are you sure you fully watched them? You seem to completely overlook most of what the videos mention aside from something in the first few minutes of the video that "kinda" supports your argument.
The first video, after about 4:30, he says "we don't seperate the campaign, the multiplayer, you jumpt in this world..." "..we blend the two together". And the exploration and narrative elements they wanted to deliver are mentioned numerous times throught the video and the others aswell.
Just to be sure, I'm going to clarify that I don't think that PvE is the sole focus. But you seem extremely adamant, despite numerous sources, including the videos YOU linked, that the openworld is just a "social hub" or tutorial and not a part of what the devs want to deliver along with the PvP.
From all angles, including the angles you've provided, I've looked and can only see that the goal was to deliver an online melee action game with a focus on deep but accesible gameplay, statisfying visuals, and seamless narrative and story. Wether that be through encounters with, or against other players.
Ontop of that, going through the game again from start to finish with a new character (took about 2 and a half hours, although using a school to still be able to use my regular deck) so I can refresh my memory... There is so much effort put into what little PvE there is that it honestly overshadows the fun factor and quality of the PvP by a longshot.
Also, although issues are often exaggerated... They're still issues, especialy because of the configurable movesets, these issues can more or less pile up to be more annoying and frustrating to fight while providing nothing in return. It doesn't help when the response to these kind of issues are half-baked solutions or anecdotal phrases.
Comparing Absolver to tennis is seriously a realy bad comparision. Simplifying the situation by too much while not even providing a proper analogy. Since when is it possible in tennis to put your opponent completely on the defensive without the ability of hitting the ball back?
There's a reason people keep complaining and brining it up, especialy when the message is often consistently the same (albeit again, often exaggerated). There are methods and playstyles that have significantly less counter-play than others while being completely unentertaining to play as or against unless you happen to have just the right mindset to only care about competetive optimization. In short the PvP is just not fun unless you're willing to be part of what makes it so inhospitable.
If a player performs an Ace and scores, you can't hit the ball back. In order to win, you don't want to exchange (trade?) balls, you want to score.
Also, hitting the ball back doesn't mean anything if the player is actually sending the ball exactly where the opponent wanted it to be, in order to perform a smash for example.
(Some effects on the ball make it so that you can't send it back exactly the way and where you want)
The analogy seems fine to me, as Absolver and Tennis (and any 1v1 sport I guess) share many aspects : the need for prediction, reaction and on-the-fly strategy. And the competitive mind-set of the people playing it, even at a casual/entertainement level.
I don't deny there are some flaws in the way PvP is designed. I met some people with extremely tedious decks to play against and others relying on very cheesy earthquake+everstunlocks combos and not to mention those annoying Speedy Bltiz Khalt builds... I even met a Shard-Gen Drunken build once who pulled out swords every 20 seconds it seems.
I just don't rematch those generally. Keeps the fun intact (mostly).
Not having the ability to hit the ball back in tennis doesn't mean you're on the defensive, it means you lost a point already and it's about to be the next round. Being on the defensive means you're playing reactively and only able to give the ball back to the opponent, not pressure them using it.
When is it possible to force the opponent to give you easy returns in tennis? Any time you have the upper hand. Outplay them and you set up situations like that even if they didn't make a direct mistake.
When is it possible in Absolver to set up situations where the opponent can't attack? Only when they put themselves into a bad situation without the tools to compensate AND you have the tools to take advantage and play into them.
If anything, Absolver makes it harder to put someone into a situation like that. The only difference is that there isn't a hard divide between new player learning the game and top-tier competitive players who could go pro if there's a scene for it.
I play Kahlt, currently being argued as the weakest style in the game. Used well in competitive play, it can keep up. It suits me better than Forsaken, which is typically argued to be "better" (also for Ghin, Side Kick can't confirm off parry any more, maybe you should actually PLAY the game?).
I have a deck in the game which literally has an 8-hit string of attacks that includes 7 breaking attacks. It's my school deck, and it can work in PvP, and it has a practical purpose in being used to help people learn deckbuilding concepts simply through how it's built. It's totally ridiculous, and yet it works and makes sense.
My competitive deck DOESN'T use most of the "meta" moves people point to, but I use it playing against highly skilled players and can hold my own in a fight. There is no "one true strategy" that everyone has to use. There are a few balance issues to tweak out, but they're NOT massive and they ARE being worked on. Part of the reason Kahlt is generally seen as underpowered right now is simply that there's a glitch making it not behave right in online play. The devs are aware it's happening and working on a fix already.
Obviously you shoulden't wait unless you plan on baiting them into a stance ability or suitable counter attack. But comparing Absolver to tennis is wrong because in tennis exchanging the ball is inevitable because once you hit the ball towards the other field your only option is to plan ahead and prepare for the rebound as it's your opponent's "turn" to react to your actions, rather than throwing another ball while they're on the defensive.
Absolver doesn't have this quality where after an action is done you are unable to do anything else with the ball till it's going back to your side of the field, instead you can keep throwing in more balls whenever you want.
But I get the analogy a bit better now, still don't think it realy works but prediction and reaction are most definitly similarities I can see.
Obliviondoll. I've said it again and before, but I just seriously disagree with your perspective on alot regarding this game. More often than not it just makes me dread these discussions and the game even more.
While I aknowledge Kahlt isn't on the stronger side on it's own and with the "playstyle" I think it was supposed to represent (medium speed heavy hitter), psyclown already mentioned the playstyle people have taken up with it that makes it completely obnoxious to play against, on the same level as a person that reactive parries whenever you're no longer abel to feint the attack, and fast attacks against actual feints.
Or maybe I got the terminology wrong, but so far people just use relatively fast and evading attacks, preparing for an attack and then instantly countering with an absorb followed by the quick/evading attack. And whenever you try a breaking attack to break through they'll just use those attacks without the absorb to interrupt them. And feints are rarely as effective against Kahlt as with the other styles. You're effectively unable to work through or around it unless they happen to make a big mistake. Which you shoulden't count on.
A well placed parry has no direct weakness in contrast to absorb, which buckles under breaking attacks and doublehits, so I'm pretty sure there's no doubt a player that knows their directions as a forsaken has the advantadge towards a Kahlt that knows their directions.
Show me the deck. You've mentioned it before but so far there's been no way for me to give it a look without having encountered you in the field before that, saying that it helps or that it has 7 breaking attacks doesn't benefit me in the slightest when I can't even see it. For all I know it's a deck similar to the ones I'm bothered about but with extra breaking attacks plastered in, but I'd rather not assume.
Also, I had the very strong impression stagger was considered the weakest? Especialy after mid-thrusts now catch backstagger reliably.